


the secret world and life of dan and phil

by bonca



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-25 20:56:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17128598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bonca/pseuds/bonca
Summary: Somehow, Dan and Phil have been convinced to be the subjects of Shane Dawson’s new docu-series on his channel;The Secret Life of Dan and Phil. Or, alternatively,The World of Dan and Phil.





	the secret world and life of dan and phil

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rubberbandx](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rubberbandx/gifts).



Soft snores emit from Phil as his jaw hangs open wide on Dan’s shoulder. His tongue lolls between his teeth, and he’s surely drooling all over the overpriced sweater that Dan is wearing, but Dan can’t bring himself to shove him off just yet.

 

Sleeping Phil has moved from position to position in his plane seat throughout the flight; from against the window, to pressed up to the seat in front of him and almost knocking over his empty 'Fanta' can, to back to the window, but it seems he’s finally found the most comfortable spot — head nestled deep into the crook of Dan’s neck.

 

Dan had rolled his eyes at Phil when he’d giddily suggested a game of 'I Spy' earlier into the flight, but now, void of any entertainment or company, he’s starting to regret it.

 

Sleeping Phil groans, and stretches his arms out in front of him. He begins to reposition himself slightly in the uncomfortable chair.

 

Dan’s fingers shakily dance up and down his thigh, tugging at the denim of his jeans, and his leg bounces up and down. Usually Phil notices it, no, Phil always notices Dan’s twitches. He always watches the way his boyfriend’s fingers pick at his hoodie strings when he gets nervous, and he always notices when he runs his hands through his curls a thousand times over. 

 

For the first time, Phil doesn't notice; his chest is rising and falling so rhythmically he can only be in the deepest of dreams, and he doesn’t notice the trembling boy he’s leaning on.

 

Dan tries to avert his mind to the movie whispering quietly through his headphones, but his brain just won’t let him do so. All he can think about right now is the root of his anxieties, and the very reason as to why he’s about to cry thirty-five thousand feet up in the air; _The Secret Life of Dan and Phil_. Or, alternatively, _The World of Dan and Phil_. Shane told them he can’t decide quite yet.

__

 

Somehow, they’ve been convinced to be the subjects of Shane Dawson’s new, and very much unnamed, docu-series on his channel. 

 

Why they’ve agreed to it is still a mystery in Dan’s head; their lives and their relationship will be pried into — judged by strangers and God knows who else — and the walls that they’ve spent their whole careers building up will be completely stripped down in only the course of a three-part series.

 

They’d been debating over the subject for weeks, calculating every 'if' and 'but' and scribbling down each advantage against its disadvantage, yet they realised they were getting nowhere. Sometimes Dan had argued that their audience deserved to know something as important as their relationship with each other, before realising that they didn’t owe anything to anyone and it wasn’t all that important anyways. Other times, he had to wonder if there was anything to label a ‘relationship’ at all.

 

He looks to his side where Phil lies, warmly snoring away.

 

Dan has never liked to admit that his insides become a gymnasium full of only the most skilled gymnasts when he so much as glances at Phil. His heart is like the trampoline, bouncing with feelings that he’s too afraid to put a name on, each look pulsating through his veins. Aches twist and turn and do a flippy-over thing in his stomach, just like the high bars.

 

He never likes to admit that he’s too scared to tell Phil, either.

 

The movie spits a thundering sound suddenly and Dan finds himself jumping in his seat. He can’t bring himself to check around to see if anybody in First Class is giggling at the way his muscles tense, or pointing to his heart beating visibly through each thick layer of skin on his body. 

 

Over the years, Dan has grown so accustomed to being able to delete or to edit out anything he doesn’t want the world seeing or knowing about; mistakes. Each video is shrunk down significantly after its filming, de-cluttered with the things that, before now, he would not dream of showing.

 

Though, having his male best friend snuggled into him thousands of feet up in the air, surrounded by probably judgmental, wealthy people, isn’t something he can cut and backspace on.

 

Cheeks erupting in each and every shade of red imaginable, he attempts to sink into his airplane seat and only fails. 

 

Dan tries to focus on the movie, though the plot is all tangled up in his brain and he can’t quite say he knows what’s being said in the scene unfolding before his eyes. 

 

“Nnhg, Dan.” Phil shifts again in his sleep, mumbles of Dan’s name spilling from his parted lips. 

 

Sleeping Phil attempts to throw himself over Dan even more than before (which is something Dan didn't know was possible to do so until just now) and his hands adventure into Dan’s. Phil holds Dan’s fingers tightly in his sleep. It's habit, Dan tries to convince himself, but somehow Phil clutching onto his hand by habit is far worse than by accident, he thinks.

 

It’s a bad movie anyways.

 

* * *

 

_A warm and fuzzy feeling is settling deep in the pit of Dan’s stomach, and writhing its way through the rest of his body. He’s sure any other normal person would feel the same way if they, too, could feel the hot breath of their idol creep up the back of their bare neck, whilst lying in said idol’s bed._

_It doesn’t matter that they’ve spent half a dozen nights exactly like this one before — limbs tangled in one and other and hair messy — because under the green and blue duvet, Dan’s toes are still curling and his knees are twitching. He’s shaking in Phil’s arms, which are protectively wrapped around his naked torso, and he just can’t sleep._

_“Phil?” Dan whispers in the dark void of Phil’s room. He’s been in this wallpapered bedroom so many times that he could walk through it blindfolded, but somehow in the thick silence of it tonight, he’s lost all sense of where he really is. “Are you awake?”_

_A tired voice whispers back, lips pressed up against Dan, “‘Mm, yeah. What’s wrong?”_

_Dan doesn’t reply. He lets the atmosphere sit heavy between them for a moment or two, or maybe even three. A different feeling pricks at his feet and it travels up to his tummy, aching. If he had to put a name on the feeling consuming him and making him feel almost sick, he’d say he’s afraid._

_He turns to face Phil. “I’m scared.”_

_“About what, Bear?” Phil replies, his murmurs a little louder now. He brings his hand to Dan’s face, pushing his overgrown fringe that’s ever-so-slightly curling at the tips, out of his eyes with his thumb. Running down Dan’s cheek, Phil’s slender fingers find their way to his prominent collarbones and he traces them softly. “What’s wrong?”_

_“What will people think? You know, about us?” Dan shivers every time Phil’s fingertips dance over his exposed skin, but it’s comforting. “We can’t really carry on kissing in dark cinemas or ferris wheels, Phil.”_

_Dan can’t say he didn’t love the feeling of Phil’s wet lips on his earlier when the credits for Avatar began to roll. Sure, the taste of salty popcorn was thick on Phil’s tongue and their 3D glasses kept slipping down the bridges of their noses, but it was a nice kiss in an emptying cinema where the lights were still low, and nobody would fully be able to recognise them making out in the middle seats._

_Phil’s hand resides to Dan’s hip. “You don’t want anyone to know about us being together?” He replies, and Dan could swear he sees a flash of hurt on Phil’s face, but it could just be the lack of light in the room playing with his eyes._

_It’s not that Dan wants to hide he and Phil’s relationship because, if anything, he wants to scream ‘I’m Phil’s’ from the rooftops until he runs his throat raw. He buries his mop of honey brown hair in the crook of Phil’s neck before he speaks into Phil’s chest, “I’m just worried about what they’ll think. You know how rubbish people can be.”_

_“Then we won’t tell anyone if that’s what you want, Bear. We don’t have to tell them if you don’t want them to know. Not our friends, parents, nobody,” whispers Phil. “Although I’m pretty sure my mum has picked up on it by now. Sorry.” He holds Dan and sits up to look at him, thumbs pressed deep into Dan’s cushioned cheeks. “But other than that, it’s just us, okay?”_

_Dan nods._

_Phil retrieves his hands from where they’re planted on Dan, and he holds his little finger out in front of him. “Pinky promise.”_

_They intertwine their fingers the best they’re able to in the dark and shake them._

_“Pinky promise,” Dan smiles as he whispers back, dimples carving his angelic face. Without letting go, Dan slots his other fingers into Phil’s and clasps their hands together tight, edging closer and closer to Phil with every passing moment. He relishes in the warmth of their two bodies pressed flush against one and other, skin on skin. Phil brings their hands to his lips and kisses them tenderly._

_“I guess this means we’re going to be doing a lot of deleting tweets and ‘spring answers about each other tomorrow, then,” Phil mutters with his eyes slipping shut. Dan watches the sleepiness sink into him._

_The truth is, Dan doesn’t want for them to delete anything of their ‘relationship’ — or rather their unmistakable flirting over Twitter, questionably late Skype calls, and their dates that consist of caramel macchiatos on their very own sofa that’s tucked so perfectly away in the corner of Starbucks — because, when Dan misses Phil, he needs something to look at to remind him that this isn’t all made up in his head and AmazingPhil is in fact in love with him. Sometimes Dan just needs to read back on the times where Phil said he’d like to kiss him, or the two-hundred and twenty-three screenshots of their calls. He doesn't want any of that to go away._

_“No,” he says. “No, we’ll keep them.”_

 

* * *

 

“Five, one, six. Five, one, six. Five, one, six,” Dan mutters under his breath whilst clutching a key in his sweaty palm. He clenches and unclenches his fist over and over and he clicks his long fingernails against the plastic of the keychain. “Room five, one, six.”

 

This is new. Usually, Phil would clamber down the (rather awfully) decorated hotel hallway, snake his arm around Dan’s waist and tell him that it’s okay, the room is just down here. But this is new, this is all new, and nothing about this is usual. Phil doesn’t drop his spotted suitcase to comfort Dan, and he certainly doesn’t hold him close with whispers. 

 

The key doesn’t fit the keyhole of Room 516. It does, or rather it should, but Dan’s shaking hands can’t seem to make it fit no matter how hard his fumbling hands try. Sweat collects under his collar and in the gaps of his fingers.

 

Dan stumbles through the door, and he’s finally met with the sight of their hotel room after having to use his shoulder to barge in. He’s not sure he likes it.

 

A large expanse of a window stretches across a majority of the hotel room walls with thin and open curtains at either side of it. Looking down at the Los Angeles and its views, Dan feels vulnerable; small; transparent; exposed. It’s like the whole world can see through the glass and can see through him. The whole world is watching him with no curtains or walls or video editing to hide him and his flaws, his secrets.

 

This is what he supposes it’s like for others, for the other people and the other YouTubers not like him. Everything they do, they do it behind a windowpane instead; in view for every eye to see and to judge. It petrifies Dan. It makes his stomach do backflips and it makes his toes tap-dance in the thick soles of his All Saints.

 

Dan’s suitcase is planted beside Phil’s on their bed — a king-sized in which they’ll share, like they always do — and they begin to unpack. 

 

Despite having separate cases, Dan and Phil’s clothes are not separated. Nothing ever is in terms of them. They’ve joked that if one were ever to leave, there’s no way they’d be able to filter through everything they own and separate them into two single piles. Somewhere along the line, they stopped caring and they began sharing each other's underwear because there was nothing else clean, and then it became each other’s t-shirts, then each other’s beds. Eventually their lives became so intertwined that it would be impossible to pull them apart. 

 

Silently, they unpack their shirts and their socks and every other bit of junk they've brought, because God knows what they’ll need in this strange, this unfamiliar and this foreign country.

 

Neither of them say it, but a feeling of dread looms. The atmosphere is threaded with uneasiness and the feeling seeps deep into Dan’s skin, as it lurks and it slithers around them like some sort of a poison. Dan figures his air pipe must be riddled with the toxin because he can’t speak and he certainly can’t breathe; he can’t even muster a “yes” when Phil asks if he’s come across his deodorant yet.

 

* * *

 

_"You should go to sleep!” Phil says after the voice on the end of the line yawns loudly. Eyes set on the pixels on his computer screen, he finds himself looking a topless Dan up and down. Even if the signal isn’t great and his face is grainy, Phil can see eye-bags beginning to form above his flushed cheeks and his words were becoming quieter and slurred. “You look sleepy.”_

_“Thanks,” he says back, rolling over onto his tummy._

_“I didn’t mean it like that, promise! You just look tired, babe.”_

_Dan giggles before he says, “I know you didn't.” Phil watches him lean his chin in his palm, and his eyes close for a brief second. “I feel tired too, if I’m honest.”_

_“So you should sleep! We have a busy day ahead of us tomorrow, right?” And it’s true. It’s going to be Halloween, and they’ve planned for Dan to come over from University to Phil’s flat. Over the course of the past week, Phil has been collecting as many packets of marshmallows and chocolates as he can, and he’s tried his hardest not to eat them all up himself because they’re for he and Dan. They’re going to watch the scariest movies they can find — which probably won’t be that scary — while snuggling up on the couch and stuffing their faces with strawberry laces, they’ve agreed._

_Dan yawns again._

_He says, “Okay, fine. Only if you promise to sleep too, though. I know what you’re like.”_

_“Promise!” Phil smiles widely and sticks his pinky out in front of his webcam. “I have a bit of editing to do for the video we filmed yesterday, but I’ll be in bed by,” — he checks the time on his laptop screen — “one.”_

_Phil knows he won’t finish it in half an hour — it needs a ton of editing done on it and he wants it to be nothing less than perfect — but if it’s what will get Dan to sleep then so be it._

_“No later!” Dan’s finger is held out in front of himself, too, and they pretend to shake pinkies. Even if they spend a majority of Dan’s days off Uni together, every time they’re apart it feels like they were never together the day before._

_“Goodnight, Dan. See you tomorrow!”_

_“Night. Love you.”_

_“I love you too.”_

_The call is ended and Phil is left staring at Skype; a heavy feeling seeps into his chest. He’s excited for tomorrow — there’s no doubting that — but the few hours left ahead of him until he gets to hug Dan and hold him and kiss him all over again seem unmanageable._

_Phil knows it won’t be long until Dan will be knocking on the door of his one-bedroom flat with his favourite pillow tucked under his arm, but he can’t help but feel lonely in front of his video editing software._

 

* * *

 

“So, tell me, why?” Shane speaks into his rather large microphone. Dan’s not really used to little cameras with big mics in his face; he’s always had tripods and scripts and the camera has always been far enough away to hide the pores on his nose. “Why did you guys keep it a secret for so long?”

 

Dan rubs his palms together. They’re slick with honey flavoured hand sanitizer, and he tries to take in as much of the scent he can before he speaks.

 

“It wasn’t a secret. It was never a secret.” Dan can feel his eyelashes rub against each other and he can hear his own uneven voice echo through the house. It makes him long for a house of his own. He licks his bottom lip; coating it in a thick, glossy layer of saliva before he speaks again, “It was just a part of our lives that we didn’t talk about, didn’t want to talk about, but it was never a secret. Not everything that you don’t comment on is keeping a secret.”

 

Dan can feel broken oxygen slither through every gap in his body as he inhales. His chest feels heavy, as does his eyelids. They’ve been filming for what he thinks is hours now; answering non-stop questions and explaining things they’ve never had to explain before, and despite the half-empty glass of water on the coffee table, Dan’s throat is raw. Of course, viewers won’t see the glass, and they won’t feel the pain. What they will see, though, is three videos with Dan and Phil’s faces in the thumbnails with the words ‘secret’ and ‘relationship’ attached.

 

It’s always been a thing for Dan, a strong point; being able to put things into words. He can string them together and tie them into sentences with pretty bows and over-complicated phrases that make him sound smart. Dan has always been able to turn a brief idea of a thought into a well-structured explanation, and he’s always been able to sputter the words confidently, even if it is to himself in the dark of his bedroom.

 

That’s why he’s done the majority of the talking, leaving Phil to sit with his head hung slightly, nodding.

 

However, he knows that Phil is trying his best. Dan knows that he’s trying to add something in every now and again in agreement, even if it’s just a word or two, and for Dan it’s comforting to know that he’s not completely alone in his head and in how he feels about it all. Phil keeps him grounded, too. He doesn't let his head balloon and float up to the clouds; he keeps him on subject, on track, by mentioning something every few sentences to lead the conversation and steer it away from any subtle jump-cuts. 

 

And together, Dan must admit, they work pretty well.

 

* * *

 

_"What did you say you were doing tomorrow? Going into the town?” Phil’s tummy is slowly getting sore from laying against his bedroom carpet for — he checks the time on his computer screen — three and a half hours too long. He needs to stretch out, but moving means he has less time to stare at the person on the other end of the Skype call._

_“Yeah. I’m going to get dragged around India for another few hours.” Dan hums back, a little distracted by his nails. He’s picking at them and biting their tips, not stopping when Phil tells him it’s a bad habit. “How fun, right?”_

_Phil watches as Dan’s eyes stare intently down at his fingertips every time he pulls them back from his teeth, as if nibbling at them a few dozen times will drastically change how they look. His cheeks are painted a fleshy pink, and are far more saturated than when Phil kissed them all over before he left for the airport._

_“Well, Dan, it is midnight for you and you do kind of have a busy day ahead of you,” Phil says._

_He sighs theatrically, finally pulling his attention away from his half-eaten nails and resting his chin snuggly in his palm. Dan’s eyes are grainy on Phil’s screen, but they meet his nonetheless. “I guess you’re right. I’m just annoyed I couldn't spend today with you.”_

_Phil remembers the way his heart felt and how the blood rushing through his veins felt wrong and misplaced in his own body when Dan had told him he wouldn't be in the country, let alone be with Phil, for Valentine's Day. It’s Phil’s first Valentine’s with somebody because, despite him being the class sweetheart when he was twelve and knew nothing better, nobody stuck around long enough to celebrate it with him. So, it felt scary and it felt shattering when Dan had told him that they wouldn't be able to do anything because he’d be almost five thousand miles away._

_“Me too, Bear. We’ll do something when you get back, though, okay?” He says, almost to himself rather than Dan. “Maybe we can go to the aquarium down the road and look at all the fish, or we could have the fanciest dinner we can afford in a restaurant somewhere. I don’t know. But we’ll do something, promise.”_

_Dan’s face is still tucked into the palm of his hand, and a smile is laced into his lips. His eyes crinkle at the edges. “I love you, Phil.”_

_“I love you more! Now go to bed before I catch the next flight over there and tuck you in myself.”_

_Soon enough, they say all their ‘goodnights’ and ‘I miss yous’ and ‘I miss you mores’ and the Skype call is ended. Phil is left in the silence of the four walls of his bedroom and the quietness is pouring harshly into his ears. Suddenly he wishes India isn't hours ahead of him. What is he supposed to do for five hours, anyways? Phil doesn’t think he’s ever gone this long without being able to contact Dan, and it feels like his insides are being put through his father’s office shredder._

_He goes through a mental list of everything he could do to distract himself from the nothingness of the next few hours that he’s sure will go by agonisingly slowly. His mind comes up with nothing, so Phil decides to do what he does best (other than fall completely more in love with Dan every time he sets eyes on him, because damn it Dan isn’t here)._

_The camera he’s had for the past year and a half is grabbed from its fixed spot on Phil’s bedside cabinet, and he grabs the wires along with it. He begins to set it up without even thinking about it, aiming it for his usual position just beside his bed._

_Phil’s not entirely sure what he’s doing. If this was any other video, he’d have a ripped page of A4 lined paper sitting crumpled on the carpet before him right now, its entirety cluttered with messy handwriting that only Phil can understand, but this isn’t really any other video and he’s sure he’ll get along just fine with whatever runs through his head._

_The camera is turned on with a click, and he waddles backwards into position with his legs crossed and overlapping one and other._

_Phil begins to speak, his voice small. He scolds himself for being nervous on camera after almost three years of sitting in front of it and going on about nothing in particular, just like he is right now. Except, this time, he’s not talking about this weird lady he met yesterday or about the free bueno he had for breakfast, he’s listing off the days he has spent so happily with Dan that never fail to make his tummy flutter and his tongue poke through his teeth when he thinks of them._

_With his hands flat on his clothed chest and in the shape of a heart, just like he and Dan always do both on camera and to each other, he calls Dan the best person in the world (because he is) and finishes the video._

 

* * *

 

Chest rhythmically rising and falling, Dan counts each breath they take. 

 

He curses choosing this hotel room, and even worse, he curses Shane for recommending it to them in the first place as the ‘best hotel in L.A’. The curtains he saw earlier are made of an even thinner fabric than he ever could've imagined, and lying in bed, he can’t sleep because of them. Light almost pours through them onto the white sheets, and the whole room is illuminated with the desaturated blue hues. It’s quite ridiculous how little they cover the windows, and Dan’s almost sure that it would be darker without them.

 

They know they have to talk. 

 

They know they have to talk about everything that’s happening, everything they’re saying and doing. 

 

They know they have to talk because they've sat in front of cameras and acquaintances for a whole day, delving into only the very deepest and unspoken secrets of their life and their little world — which only really consists of each other — and yet they can’t bring themselves to face each other in bed to murmur a ‘goodnight’.

 

It’s Phil who breaks the silence. “Are you okay, Dan?”

 

Dan doesn’t think he can muster a ‘yes, fine’ or a ‘not really, Phil’ and even if he could, he’s not sure which one he’d say anyways. A swarm of bees is invading his throat, the hive is planted in his stomach, and everything stings.

 

He turns away from the shitty curtains that he’s examining so very closely, and faces Phil in the bed that could certainly fit more than just the two of them. 

 

“Hug me.”

 

In a matter of seconds, Phil engulfs Dan’s body in his own; his arms wrapped protectively around him and his sweaty fingers holding Dan’s freckles in his palms. 

 

They’ve done this countless times (and once or twice Dan was the comforter. Phil isn’t one to show his feelings too much, but when he does, Dan is there, just as Phil is always there for him), yet this time feels different. They aren’t in the mountains of their own cushioned blankets and favourite pillows, surrounded by their own belongings — they’re in some unnecessarily expensive hotel room in a country they’ve only ever been in a handful of times. 

 

It’s change; change that Dan would rather do in the comfort of his own living room.

 

He feels Phil’s arms clutch onto him tighter, and although he’s finding it a little hard to breathe, it’s what he needs. Dan needs the warmth of another body next to his, breathing in time with his own, and he needs that person to be Phil.

 

A hand folds through Dan’s curls, and he presses his head to the touch. It’s soft, and it evens out his breathing, and suddenly everything seems to melt away a little bit.

 

After a small while, Dan feels the hand leave his hair and he hears Phil whisper, “We’ll be okay. Promise.” Phil’s pinkie finger is held out in between he and Dan’s faces.

 

Dan doesn’t ever want him to let go.

 

* * *

 

_"Now arriving in Manchester Piccadilly station. Please exit through the doors on the left.”_

_Dan’s bag feels heavier than what it was earlier, when he stuffed it full of his favourite outfits and flavours of hand sanitizer. He can still smell the sticky honey and macaroon where the thick lotion is settled into the crevices of his hands, and it reminds him of home._

_Before departing the train whose insides he’s been examining closely for the past few hours, he manages to squeeze a few dollops of the sanitizer onto his hands. He rubs them together in a desperate attempt to stop his hands from feeling like the picky material of the train seats. The smell of toffee (his personal favourite) hits him almost instantly as he rolls his palms together, the soothing liquid covering even his fingerprints._

_Clicking the cap down, Dan shoves it into his back pocket before swinging his rather-on-the-larger-side rucksack onto his shoulders, where it sits uncomfortably. He breathes in the sweet smell of his fingers in an attempt to calm his nerves, though he knows not even his favourite flavour can soothe the way his stomach feels._

_Legs shaking and feet stumbling, Dan begins working his way through the station. Everyone is shoulder-to-shoulder, and it’s overwhelming. He can hear the conversations that each person he passes is having; dog parlours and how awful the weather is for October and a new throw someone just bought for their bed._

_It’s then that he sees someone unlike any other standing in the crowd. No hustling and no chattering, no hand gestures and no fuss. He stands there, tall, in the middle of Manchester Piccadilly, and Dan is pretty sure it’s Phil._

_He’s standing in front of AmazingPhil._

_Dan must say that Phil doesn’t quite look like Phil; his teeth are a little different than what Dan imagined and he’s much taller. Phil’s voice doesn’t quite sound the same as it does through the grainy window on 'Skype' and Dan’s not sure he’s ever seen that shirt before on him. Dan would know._

_“Hi, Dan.”_

_He feels sick, and all that he can think about is how he’ll have to catch it in his sweet-smelling palms and re-sanitize them all over again. Dan would quite frankly die of shame if he got any vomit on AmazingPhil’s shoes. That would be one for his channel, for sure, and for all the wrong reasons._

_“Do you want to get out of here?” Phil says. “It’s kinda loud and I can’t hear your thoughts. God, I can’t even hear my own.”_

_Dan only nods, because he’s sure that if he were to open his mouth, words would not be the only things coming out of it._

 

* * *

 

It’s always been a case of ‘the neighbors don’t 100% know but we’re pretty sure they hear us going at it most nights, but also don’t give them any more than a smile in the corridor, just in case’ with Dan and Phil, but today (and every day from now on) is an exception to that. 

 

It’s hand-in-hand they make their way up the narrow stairwell and meet their middle-aged neighbor at the top. Sure, they mustn’t look anything out of the ordinary, or revolutionary, because it’s just holding hands, but both Dan and Phil know that it goes beyond that. 

 

So much as the thought of hand-holding has always been an alien concept to Dan and Phil. 

 

On the way up, Dan almost instinctively let go because he knows that this is the time Miss Next-Door goes on her routine jog and she would see, but it was Phil to clutch onto and squeeze his hand in his own. A polite smile is all they received, but to them, that is enough. Enough for them to know that this was worth it. Enough for them to know that they can breathe.

 

They do breathe, when they unlock their apartment again for the first time after a week of sunny America. 

 

It’s in the entrance that they stand, silently, but mostly just out of breath from carrying their suitcases up those flights of steps. 

 

Everything is still in its place, unmoved, untouched. Everything is just where they left it; the TV remote is planted on the couch where they turned off the cooking channel before they left with their hearts in their throats, and one of Dan’s t-shirts is still left, abandoned, on the breakfast bar where he’d thrown it after deciding that it didn’t match his outfit. The frames hanging on the walls that they wouldn’t dare show in the background of live-shows are still wonky, and Dan still feels like complaining about them. A terrarium or two have withered and a few of Phil’s potted plants are extremely dehydrated and dried up, but apart from that, everything is where they left off. 

 

Yet, everything is different. The candles don’t really smell the same and the rug looks out of place in the middle of the lounge, and even though Dan knows it's always been like that, everything feels different. Everything feels grown-out of and old, everything feels small and unknowing. 

 

It's the same apartment, on the same street and in the same London, with the same ornaments and same memories, but Dan and Phil are not the same. The people who walked out of this same flat a week ago with full suitcases and empty stomachs are barely the same people who stand in the hallway now. 

 

They couldn't be any happier.

 

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! feel free to leave kudos/comments! they always make my day :-)
> 
> u can find me on tumblr [here](https://bonca.tumblr.com/).


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